PowerMac 8600 Needs New Monitor

If you're planning to hook up a VGA monitor you need a Mac to VGA adapter. If you're planning to hook up a Apple monitor though you should be fine.

The signals involved:
Red intensity and its ground
Green intensity and its ground
Blue intensity and its ground
Horizontal Sync -- indicates start and end of one row of dots across the screen
Vertical Sync -- Indicates start and end of one screenful of rows of dots

... can only be transposed from the typical
"VGA-style" three-row 15 pin Male (with pins) connector on the cable-end to the
Apple "two-row" 15 pin Female (with holes) connector on the Mac Display Card
... in one way that will work.

The poorly-documented "feature" that will trip you up is that the Macs of that era expect a code on pins 4, 7, and 10 that tells the Mac what kind of display is attached. If no signals are asserted, grounded, or cross-connected with wires or diodes on those pins, the default of "No display attached" gives no picture.

You need an adapter specific to the broad class of displays you intend to connect. There are over 17 different legitimate codes for Mac displays, but frankly, most of them are for obsolete displays. The most common still used are for VGA Display (640 by 480 and Super VGA 640 by 800) and Multiple-Sync display (640 by 480 and 832 by 624 and 1024 by 768 and possibly 1152 by 870) switchable on the fly. And it needs to be specific to older Macs and have the pins and holes on the correct sides. There are other adapters for a different problem that have the pins and holes reversed.

Leidon,

We assume that you have a standard VGA monitor from a PC that you want to use on a Mac. Also, your 8600 could use a PCI video card with both types of connectors. Options abound.

Here is the Apple site:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=33001

Google 'mac vga monitor adapter' and you will get a long list of options.

here is what you are looking for:

http://www.national-tech.com/specs/30d2-06200.htm

Also, on ebay, this is what you DO NOT want
here.

Make sure the gender is correct with pins on the Mac end and holes on the VGA end.

Online sources are expensive. A used computer store will have them for $5. A surplus store will have that adapter for $1.00

Good luck.

Ji˜m

I've used these yellow ones I bought from eBay, and they work well. Go to eBay and search on "TVCS-183" and you will see them. The vendor I bought from may or may not have been the one with current listings, but it's the same adapter.